Vending machines are well known in the art. The basic precepts of providing a machine that accepts monetary consideration and automatically provides, in exchange, a corresponding product appears to date back to the first century. Something quite akin to the modern vending machine began appearing in the 1880's. By one well-known approach, the vending machine comprises a housing having a front portion that is at least partially transparent to thereby permit a consumer to view the available inventory of vendable products. In many such cases, the interior of the vending machine includes one or more shelves to support these vendable products.
Though of long-standing practice, vending machines are not without their problems. As one example, the restocking of such a vending machine can be inconsistent with a planned approach in these regards. In particular, the restocking attendant may place particular vendable products in an incorrect location within the vending machine. As a related problem, such an attendant may fail to stock a particular vendable product in the vending machine at all. Such problems can lead to reduced sales, frustrated marketing and promotional activities, and so forth.
As another example in these regards, not all locations within such a vending machine are considered of equal promotional value. Typically, the vendable-product support shelves that are closer to eye level for the typical anticipated consumer are considered better than shelves disposed lower within the vending machine.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. It will further be appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. It will also be understood that the terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary technical meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions by persons skilled in the technical field as set forth above except where different specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.